Back in 2011 Lomography released the curious little shooter called La Sardina. It is retro styled camera designed to resemble the sardine can camera of the 1930’s. It’s been a success for those crafty Austrian purveyors of plastic. But in a world where now Lomography has rivals how does it stand up. Does it still stand as Queen of plastic fantastic or is another one bites the dust ?

It is one of several Lomography lines that owe its design to vintage cameras. And as we’ll see it may have historically more in common with the Sprocket Rocket than you might assume. But lets go back to the 1930’s

It’s a Kandor Magic

The birth of Sardine can cameras is shrouded in myth. There’s a whole made up story about a US sailor who got stuck in Douarnenez in Brittany and made a camera from a sardine can which spirals into a tail of Mafia Hijinks. But’s all false as the legendary Sylvain Halgand notes.

What is certain is a New York company called Irwin Kandor started selling 127 roll film camera that resembled Sardine tin at the end of the 1930’s. The company produced several models some with the sardine can like design and some with a evolved design with a more tapered body. The original bodied cameras resembled Sardine tins and some claim that the company actually used those tins. However this would seem untrue.

Kandor would be followed by other. Sylvain’s page is one of the best resources on these cameras. And he spots the link internally to one of the Chicago cluster manufacturers. Their cameras inspired another notable Lomography camera the Sprocket Rocket.

Killer Queen – Over a decade of Style

This is arguably one of Lomography’s most stylish cameras. It’s en pointe design wise with it’s clear vintage heritage. The company list 39 different style variants on it’s microsite. Although I think there may be more and currently they just have 3 versions on sale

Like my Mobius edition almost all are plastic bodied. Historically there are some all metal body editions. . The back door comes off completely

All feature a proprietary screw mount on one side for the Fritz the Blitz Flash. There’s standard metal tripod slot on base and the shutter button has a cable point.

Top plate features both wind on and rewind dial, switch for shutter (B-N & MX). The shutter button sits on the winder knob. beside an easy read frame count

Internally we have a flat film plane.

Seven Seas of Wynd – La Sardina Spec

The camera features a collapsible 22mm f/8 lens. Sold as having 2 focus zones . In most use you’ll shoot between 1m and infinity (Marked with 3 people standing) but if you turn the front lens bezel you can move to the close up setting (marked with a fly icon) allowing you to shoot at 0.6-1m.

DoFmaster suggest an optimal focal range is 1.6m to infinity with a 22mm1:8 focused at hyperfocal but the near difference is more than acceptable with a plastic lensed camera

Shutter is either 1/100 or bulb. The switch sits in front of the viewfinder and also allows you to move to activate MX

Internally the film plane is flat

There is tripod screw on base and on side a point for lanyard loop and bolting on the proprietary Fritz the blitz flash. This has 3 power setting defined on distance for 100 ISO in the La Sadina Manual. It’s reasonably powerful stuff but at 100 ISO limits you to 1.6m. Use faster film to get round that as below

You can’t use any other flash units with the La Sardina. There is a connector and bracket set letting you use the Fritz with other cameras)

We Will Shoot you using the La Sardina

Meanwhile I suspect a few will get sent back as the manual misses a major point. In brief that’s because for the shutter to fire properly lens must be in the extended position.

However there is no mention of this in the manual !!!! So to open the lens out you turn anticlockwise, there will be a little pop out from locking point and the lens turns about a 1/4. Pull the lens forward and then turn clockwise until it pops back into lock.

In brief to load take the rear off and load as normal. There’s a slotted uptake spool. Make sure you put door back on properly. Interestingly Lomography recommend depressing shutter then winding on. Then they suggest you’ll need to blank 2 frames before shooting.

The front lens ring moves between the 2 focus points

Interestingly the camera does not have a rewind lock so you can simply just rewind using the rewind knob. It’ll make a ratcheting noise until you you’ve fully rewound

The finder although simple and has a small eye window is central. It’s coverage is off centre a little but not bad

You’re my Best Labs

I had shots a roll of Rollei RPX 400 and stupidly used a roll of badly expired kodak Ultra back in June which Photo Hippo did their best with. I later ran a roll of ColorPlus which was processed by AG Photo lab.

Under Pressure – The Results

This is no clinical sharp wonder but if you like slightly kooky images this might be up your street.

Yeah distortions there are a few. You get obvious barrel distortion

Things soften off rapidly from the centre and there a lot of vignetting. The blurring off centre is quite marked

The close focus works better than long IMHO

Longer shots just seem to show more of the off centre blur and in fact median stuff looks more sharper than distant.

But it is stronger for closer focus

I did wonder if it was just my camera but Al Mullen’s shoot of of this with the Superheadz WS looked the same.

Final Thoughts – Was it Bohemian Rapsody or a Hammer to Fall ?

Its a plastic Lomography camera so you ain’t going to get clinical perfect pictures. This is for Lo-Fi fans and does have one of the most quirky designs on the market at the moment with lots of retro charm. The images are Kooky but with character. I couldn’t recommend it as a daily carry as it can’t do long shots for toffee but for close and middle stuff it is interesting

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Spread Your Wings – Links

Lomography has a micro site for this and the manual can be found on their repository. I’ve already mentioned Al Mullen’s Head to head review on this site. You can find other reviews at Camera Go Camera, Tech Radar and Cutebun amongst others

Friends will be Friends – Alternatives ?

To be fair no one makes cheap plastic retro styled cameras like Lomography do. It’s stablemates include the quirk Sprocket Rocket and the half shanked Diana Mini that is the Lomourette (just buy a mini why you can this is really a munted version)

That is until Reto Came along and gave use the Phenomenal Kodak Ektar H35 series which channel the 60’s instamatics to a T.

I’d rate the half frame H35N the best new sub £/$100 camera. But it is clinically very impressive and perhaps not what you want from a Lo-Fi

The H35N uses a Hybrid version of the lens from it’s little brother the H35. These are of course based off the fantastic VUWS which is legendary cult Lo-Fi camera currently found in Reto UWS form